THE STUDY.
Luke was beginning to feel acutely the great necessity of a study. When
his mother had lived with him she had left the dining-room entirely for
his use in the mornings, and had been careful not to interrupt him by
going in and out. In fact, in those days they had kept no servant, and
Mrs. Greville had been so busy in the house that she had not needed to
use the room at all.
But since Luke had married and Polly had come as maid, things had been
different. Rachel was constantly in the room, and though she took pains
to be as quiet as possible, and sometimes sat so still working, that,
had it not been that Luke had heard her enter, he would not have known
she was there, he was more or less conscious of her presence, and this
very consciousness was an interruption.
Luke at this time was not only busy with his parish and his sermons; he
was grappling with the great enemy in his own soul.
The literature of the day was flooded with scepticism, and the truths
he held most dear were questioned, not only by avowed unbelievers, but
by those who held important positions in the Church; and for the sake,
not only of his own soul but for those of his people, he had to face
these questions and to answer them to his own perfect satisfaction.
He felt that the only way to fight the great enemy was by hard study
and constant prayer. And both these duties were almost impossible under
the present circumstances. He needed to be alone with God, and not to
be subject to continual interruptions even from his wife. Moreover he
felt that a study was necessary, so that people who needed spiritual
advice or comfort might not be afraid of coming to see him.
Then he had suffered considerably from Rachel's efforts to keep the
dining-room tidy. The papers that he left lying about his writing table
had been often neatly arranged in heaps, and he had spent several
minutes in sorting them. Yet he felt he could not blame the dear hands
that had done it, for he happened to know that Polly was not allowed to
touch his writing table; Rachel undertook its dusting and arrangement
herself. Had he a study he could safely leave his papers about and make
a rule that they should not be touched except by himself.
Yes, a study was absolutely necessary.
One morning its necessity was borne in upon him more than ever. He had
some very important letters to write and in the midst of them, Polly
came in to lay the cloth for dinner. Some of his papers he had put on
the table and the laying of the cloth involved their removal. He was
just in the midst of answering a very difficult question and felt he
could not possibly be interrupted.
"Ask Mrs. Greville to put off dinner for half an hour," he said. Rachel
ran in.
"Do you really want dinner put off Luke?" she asked. "It will, I fear,
all be spoilt."
"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. This letter has to go by the 3
o'clock post. Don't let Polly come in again till I tell you."
To Rachel, Luke's dinner was of more importance than any number of
letters, but she saw he was a little worried and so left the room at
once. Half an hour afterwards she heard the front door slam.
"Quick Polly," she said, "Mr. Greville has evidently gone to the post,
lay the table as fast as you can."
But Luke must have gone further than the post. Ten minutes passed away
and he had not returned.
"I do believe he has forgotten dinner," said Rachel, looking at Polly
with a woe-begone face.
"It is a shame," said Polly, "and you've got such a nice one for him.
It's just like the master; he don't think of himself a bit. He's
thinking of them people."
And Luke, perfectly unconscious of the surprised distress he had left
behind him, knowing that he was late for an engagement, hurried into a
pastry cooks, bought a penny bun, and went off to his meeting, thinking
to himself, "I must have a study somehow or other. It is impossible to
do my work without it."
Should he suggest to Rachel to turn the little spare room into a study?
No, that would prevent her having her sister to stay with her upon
which, he knew, she had set her heart. He felt almost inclined to go to
the extravagance of renting a room in the house where his mother lived.
That was not a bad idea at all. He would talk it over with his mother.
When he returned home, to his surprise he found Rachel looking worried.
"Oh Luke," she said, as she glanced up from her work when he opened
the door. "What have you been doing? Do you know that you have had no
dinner and that Polly and I waited for ours till three o'clock, hoping
that you would come. It is really too bad of you." Rachel was evidently
ruffled.
"I've had lunch, so don't worry dear," he said, "I'm a bad boy I fear."
Rachel laughed.
"You are a very bad boy indeed," she said, "and don't a bit deserve to
have a wife who has prepared a particularly nice dinner for you. But
what have you had, and where did you have it?"
"I got a bun, and that supported me well all through the meeting for
which I was nearly late."
"A bun! only a bun! Oh Luke, you really are impossible. Of course," she
added as she rose, "you must have a proper meal now."
"No, have tea early and give me an egg. That's all I feel inclined for."
He made his way towards his writing table, then stopped short.
"Who has been moving my papers?" he asked.
Rachel started. She had never heard Luke speak so irritably before.
"I have been tidying up," she said, "I hope I have done no mischief.
All the letters I have put in the top drawer. See, here they are,"
opening the drawer quickly, "and your larger papers and books I have
laid together. They are quite all right. I was most careful of them."
Luke checked the expression of impatience that he was about to use, and
only said:
"I'd rather that they had been left just as I put them. It delays me to
have to hunt for letters."
"But the room had to look tidy," said Rachel distressed, "and I thought
that if anyone came in to see me and happened to be shown into the
dining-room you would not care for your letters to be strewn about. You
remember you left in a hurry."
"So I did," he said. "I had forgotten. And you are quite right;
the letters ought not to be left about where any one can see them.
However," he added, sitting down at his writing table and beginning
to look through the top drawer, "it all makes my way plainer. It is
positively necessary to have a study where need not be disturbed."
"Why not have dinner in the drawing-room on the days you are at home in
the mornings," said Rachel, anxious to help him.
"Oh no, I could not think of that. What I feel I must do is to get a
room somewhere; in the house, for instance, where my mother lodges. I
must manage it somehow."
Rachel standing by his side while he sorted his papers was quite
silent. It was all that she could do not to cry out, "Oh Luke, why are
you so blind; why do you hurt me so?" As it was, she stood perfectly
still and silent.
The days on which Luke wrote his sermons were red letter days. She
loved to sit near him and work; and she had had the impression that
the sense of her presence helped him. She had told him once that she
sat praying for him as he wrote, and he had kissed her as his thanks.
Evidently she had been mistaken; he would prefer to be alone. And
why, oh why should he choose to find a room in his mother's house? It
would be the beginning of seeing far less of him than ever. Of course
his mother would persuade him to stay to dinner with her if his next
duty was near her rooms; and it would be only human nature for her to
discuss his wife with him and to hint that she was incapable. But she
put this thought away from her at once. She was so certain that Luke
would not discuss her with anyone, even with his mother.
Her perfect silence made Luke look round, and the expression on her
face perplexed him. He covered the hand that lay on the back of his
chair with his own, saying remorsefully:
"I'm afraid, dearest, I was a little sharp just now. You must forgive
me. You were perfectly right to tidy away my papers; but you will
understand that it would be easier for me if I had a room where I could
leave them about and find them easily. Besides," he said, "I want more
time for private prayer and a place where I cannot be interrupted. My
work is suffering for want of this."
"I see," said Rachel. She tried to smile, but failed. "I so love being
with you when you write your sermons," she added.
"And I have loved to have you. But the work must come first; and I am
convinced that for every reason it will be better to have a room quite
to myself." He turned round again to finish sorting his papers.
Rachel came to a sudden determination.
"You won't engage that room till you have thought a little longer about
it," she pleaded.
"I shall engage it to-morrow if possible," he answered with decision.
And Rachel said in her heart, "You shall not engage it to-morrow."
Then she went out to find Polly.
"Polly," she said in a soft voice, "do you think your father could
come round this evening and bring a man with him. I want to give Mr.
Greville a surprise and make the spare room into his study. He will be
out at a meeting till nine o'clock. Could you just run round do you
think? I will get the tea."
The little spare room had been arranged with the hope that her
sister Sybil would soon be able to come and pay them a visit. It was
dreadfully disappointing that now she would not be able to take her
in. She would have to get a room out for her which would not be nearly
so nice. But anything would be better than for Luke to rent a room
in his mother's house. She could not endure that. If he did that she
would see less and less of him, and she did not think it could be good
for a husband to get used to being a long time away from his wife. In
fact she simply could not bear it. Sybil's little room at the top of
the stairs must be turned into a study; and all the time Rachel was
preparing the tea she was planning where to place the furniture and
his books. The very idea of giving him such a surprise had the effect
of sending away all melancholy thoughts, and Luke, who had been as
startled to see such a look of melancholy on his wife's face as she had
been to hear his somewhat irritable tone of voice, was relieved to see
her as bright as usual, and determined never to allow any irritability
to find its way into his heart towards her again.
At ten o'clock that evening Rachel sat by the open window in the
drawing-room listening for her husband's footstep. She was very tired,
as though Polly's father had, with the help of another man, taken up
Luke's writing table and book shelves, etc., and moved other furniture
into the spare room. Rachel and Polly had between them moved the books
and had arranged them as near as possible in the same order in the
shelves, as Luke had arranged them himself in the dining-room. She had
taken out of the dining-room two of his favourite pictures and had hung
them over his table; and she had placed a large armchair by the window
so that he could read in comfort.
And now she sat wondering if Luke would be pleased, or if the very
careful moving of his papers would again vex him. Her heart beat as she
heard him open the door and she ran to meet him. She drew him into the
drawing-room, saying:
"I have such a surprise for you."
But Luke hardly seemed to hear her. His face was radiant, and Rachel
saw at once that something had happened to make him very happy and to
engage all his thoughts.
"I have such good news to tell you," he said, as he sank rather wearily
into a chair.
"What is it?" asked Rachel. After the excitement of the evening his
preoccupation rather damped her spirits. That it was not the time to
spring her surprise upon him she felt at once, so she took up her
needle work and sat down. She could not but notice the expression on
his face. She could not think of any other word by which to describe it
to herself, but radiant, and a longing that he did not live quite so
up in the clouds, as she would have expressed it, took possession of
her; he had evidently not heard her remark as she had met him at the
door; or if he had heard it, it was to him of such infinitely minor
importance than the news he was about to communicate to her, that he
had ignored it.
As he was silent before answering her question Rachel said again, and
he didn't notice the faint tone of impatience in the voice.
"What is your wonderful news? Do tell me."
"That's just it," he said looking joyfully at her. "It is wonderful.
A man who has been the ringleader of a lot of harm in the parish,
has to-night made the great decision; in other words, he has been
converted."
"Oh Luke, how beautiful," said Rachel.
Rachel knew what this news meant to her husband. For a moment the study
was forgotten.
"He has only twice been to the class;" continued Luke, "and the first
time he made himself troublesome by arguing with me. But he came again
to my surprise, and to-night, well, it was wonderful. It only shows
what God can do. It was just a word of Scripture that struck him and
would not let him rest. He was quite broken down."
Rachel's work had dropped on to her knee and she sat looking at her
husband. His face reminded her of the parable of the lost sheep and of
the joy in the Presence of God over one sinner that repented. Even in
the days of their perfect courtship, even on that wonderful moonlight
night on the sea at Southwold, she had never seen such joy on his face.
His love for his Lord, and His work, exceeded, evidently, every other
love and interest. Rachel looking into her own heart and remembering
how comparatively little communion she experienced with her Lord,
compared to Luke, felt inclined to weep. She had been wholly taken up
with her husband and his home and with the determination of keeping
him all to herself. She had not given much time to prayer; and even in
those moments in which she had knelt down night and morning she found
her thoughts wandering away to Luke, and revolving round him. Her
conscience accused her loudly.
"I will bring in your cocoa," she said rising, "Polly has gone to bed."
It was after drinking his cocoa, that she told him again that she had a
surprise waiting for him.
They ran upstairs together, his arm round her. He was in such buoyant
spirits. Then Rachel opened the study door.
For the first moment he was silent from astonishment. Then he took her
face between his hands and kissed her.
"But I don't approve of the surprise at all," he said, laughing. "What
about Sybil?"
"Sybil will have a room out. I would a hundred times rather that you
should write your sermons in your own home and near me than that you
should get a room elsewhere. Do you like it?"
"Like it? I should think so." Then his face became grave. "But where
are my letters and papers?" he asked anxiously.
"Perfectly safe. I have put an elastic band round the letters and they
are in exactly the same order as you left them, and so are your other
papers which you will find in the long top drawer. Then I have told
Polly that she is never to come into the study, but that I will see to
it. So you can leave everything about, dear; or lock the room up when
you are out."
Luke busy among his papers looked up with a smile.
"Are you sure you would not mind me doing that? I can't tell you what a
relief it would be to me to know that nothing has been moved."
"I will dust it early in the morning before your letters come," said
Rachel, "and then you will be sure that you can leave everything about
and it won't be interfered with."
His smile of pleasure was enough reward for Rachel.
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